From the Archive: Why I Write about Bulgaria

It was a cloudy, spring day and my wife and I were sitting on a bench, waiting for the Regional Historical Museum to open its doors for the day. We were in Vratsa, a small town in northwestern Bulgaria, 2-hour's train journey north of Sofia. A statue of 19th century revolutionary Hristo Botev overlooked the pavement, the hero's arm clenched across his chest as if he were about to launch into a fervent call to rebel against the long-gone Ottoman oppressors. A gypsy boy approached us.

The boy mumbled something in Bulgarian, a language we had failed to master despite several meetings with a tutor who emphasized grammar, rather than conversation. The boy held out his hand.

Read the rest of this article.

My Story 'Rakiya' in Print

My short story 'Rakiya' was published in Vagabond, Bulgaria's English language magazine, back in December, but I only received copies in the mail today!

The long delivery time can probably be blamed on the COVID-19 pandemic which interrupted many things such as international postal services.

In any case, it is very exciting to see the story in print!

You can read 'Rakiya' on the Vagabond website.

What Israel Needs Now

I would never have imagined that I would one day support Bennett as my country’s leader.

According to outgoing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s new coalition is coming together only because votes have been “stolen from the right [and given] to the left.” In his words, the coalition formed by Prime Minister-designate Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid is “the greatest election fraud” in the history of democracy.

"Let go," Bennett beseeched Netanyahu in a televised address. "Let the country move forward." Bennett called on Netanyahu not to leave “scorched earth” behind him.

A unity government to bring our country back together

I have voted for the leftwing Meretz party in every election. Israel’s incoming government will be its most rightwing ever (despite Netanyahu’s repeated assertions that it will be a radical leftwing government). Still, I support it.

Meretz is one of eight political parties in the parliamentary coalition that will form the government. Rightwing parties, leftwing parties, religious Israelis and secular Israelis, and for the first time ever, an Arab Israeli party.

Habitual liar

What was so wrong with Netanyahu, Israel’s leader for the past 12 years (and 3 additional years in an earlier term of office)? Sure, he helped Israel get the vaccines necessary to combat the coronavirus crisis (although he totally mishandled the crisis due to political considerations, whereas Bennett offered a solid, carefully thought-out plan for recovery), and established formal peace agreements with four Arab countries, and kept Israel’s economy on track through difficult years, but he did this at a high price for Israel’s democracy. Netanyahu is on trial for corruption, in three separate cases. He is a master politician who will do everything possible to stay in power, including by lying repeatedly to the public.

“I have never negotiated with [Mansour Abbas, leader of the United Arab List party],” Netanyahu stated yesterday. According to Abbas, the two held many negotiations over the past few years on “forming a government, joining a government, and preventing a government.” Abbas will be part of the coalition that will replace Netanyahu.

(This is just one example of Netanyahu's blatant lies.)

Unprecedented warning

Protests against the new government are legitimate, Bennett said, but a "violent machine” was acting against the new coalition through “a funded and directed operation.”

The previous evening, Shin Bet leader Nadav Argaman warned that “this discourse may be interpreted among certain groups or individuals as one that allows violent and illegal activity and could even lead to harm to individuals.”

Analysts suggested his words came in the wake of rabbis who called on their public to do anything possible to stop the new government. In 1995, rabbis issued similar statements and a short while later, one of their followers assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

Israel is on tenterhooks these days, and anything could happen before the Knesset votes on the new government. Bennett and Lapid are carefully navigating their way forward, despite ongoing protests and harassments.

I hope and pray that they will succeed.

Image from Naftali Bennett's Twitter feed.

Arabesque and Efendi

"Arabesque is much more than just a small boutique hotel ... It is a labor of love shared by Muslims, Jews and Christians alike.  At Arabesque we view art and culture as a unifying factor, even – or especially – in a region of contention like the Middle East." From the Arabesque website

Unfortunately, the 'unifying factor' was far from evident in the past week as riots and clashes between Arabs and Jews spread like wildfire through Israeli cities with mixed populations.

Evan Fallenberg, owner of Arabesque in Acre (Akko), posted the following on Facebook:

"On Wednesday, shortly after midnight, Arabesque fell to the hands of a violent mob, in spite of the best efforts of our neighbors, who deflected the attack time and again until the mob grew to fifty and there were threats to burn down the entire neighborhood."

Arabesque was not the only victim in Acre of the widespread violence. The nearby Efendi boutique hotel was also torched and its adjacent world-famous Uri Buri restaurant was burned down. Jodie and I had stayed at the Efendi and had eaten at Uri Buri on a romantic weekend four years ago.

Uri Jeremias, owner of Effendi and the restaurant, told Yediot Aharonot this week that they were specifically targeted because they served as an example of coexistence in Acre.

Coexistence in Israel seems to be hanging by a thread these days. There have been clashes between Arab rioters and Israeli police in Jaffa (Yafo), Lod, and elsewhere. There have been shootings and attempted lynches, of both Jews and Arabs. It should be noted that some of the violence has been perpetrated by right-wing extremist Jews.

There has been sharp criticism of both the police's inability to handle Israel's internal crisis (at a time when there is a serious war with Hamas in Gaza) and the government, which has consistently ignored the country's Arab minority.

But, despite everything, there is hope. Uri Jeremias remains optimistic and plans to rebuild Efendi and re-open the Uri Buri restaurant, "better than before".

Evan Fallenberg posted: "It is not yet clear whether the people in this sad, beautiful, ravaged land can ever learn to respect the differences and distinctions between us and use them for an enhanced joint future, whether the wrongs committed by all parties can be righted. Only this, I know for certain: the friendships I have made in Acre are real and unassailable, even by hatred, anger and muscle. From this, I will build a future."

Evan Fallenberg is an American-born Israeli author and a translator of Hebrew books, plays and films. I have previously reviewed his novels When We Danced on Water and The Parting Gift.

Related articles:

The Sidewalk of Coexistence

Romantic Weekend in Israel’s other Walled Old City

Iftar

Last night, I joined twenty-five members of my Marketing team at the home of our colleague, Amira, in Kfar Qasim, an Arab city east of Tel Aviv. The occasion was Iftar, the break-the-fast meal eaten by Muslims each evening during the month of Ramadan.

The food, prepared by Amira, her mother and her sister, was served on the long table set in Amira's yard. Roasted chicken, legs of lamb, stuffed peppers and zucchini, tabbouleh salad, stuffed grape leaves, and a variety of kubbeh. Delicious and plentiful, more than we could eat!

Desserts were traditional, and very sweet. Katayef, baklava, and other pastries.

It was such a wonderful experience to share Amira's culture and traditions, even if it was for just one evening. Shukran!

Ramadan Mubarak!

Related article:

I Celebrate Ramadan! On My Own. In My Backyard.

Review of the film 'Stowaway'

 

A three-member crew on a two-year mission to Mars discovers that there's a fourth person on board their ship. A stowaway. Although the crew quickly binds with the unexpected traveler, they discover that he has inadvertently destroyed a critical carbon dioxide-removing device. They don't have enough oxygen on board for their flight, and one passenger will have to go.

You would think that this problem is the most serious thing that happens during the film 'Stowaway' (Netflix, 2021), but something more serious occurred when the script was being written. The film is full of inconsistencies, illogical events, unlikely circumstances, and plot elements that are totally absurd.

Here is a partial list of what I found wrong in the film. (I can't take credit for everything I've listed):

·         How did Michael, the stowaway, survive the launch, when the members of the crew had to wear helmets and oxygen masks?

·         Michael was an engineer, but he was incapable of fixing any of the ship's technical malfunctions.

·         Why wasn't the ship equipped with a backup system?

·         Why couldn't the crew abort their mission the moment they discovered the stowaway and the critical malfunction?

·         Filling a cannister with pressurized oxygen turns out to be an illogically simple task, but dropping that cannister on the return to the ship by trained astronauts, who are securely tethered to each other, is just plain stupid.

·         As pointed out by other, more knowledgeable reviewers, a solar radiation storm would not be visible.

Despite all of the above, I found the film strangely captivating, primarily because of the acting. Toni Collette as mission commander was totally believable, especially when she can't avoid shedding a tear or two as things began to fall apart. Daniel Dae Kim as the ship biologist who can manage neither the physical stress of the launch nor the failure of his algae experiments. Shamier Anderson as the stowaway, whose despair when learning he is going to die comes across with the right amount of pathos. And Anna Kendrik as the medical researcher, is a joy to watch as she handles the most difficult assignments with poise and the slightest hint of a smile.

Critics of the film have noted the good acting, but also the fact that the film is quite boring. But then, a two-year journey to Mars is probably one of the most tedious journeys that humans could conceivably take in the very near future. It's a shame that the many ridiculous plot elements of 'Stowaway' make us less likely to take the trip.  

Review of 'Exit' by Belinda Bauer

Death, in the end, beats us all. The ultimate end of life is inevitable but for some, it's harder to leave this world than others. Can we choose to leave of our own accord if we no longer have a quality of life? Can we get help if we make that fatal decision?

Not everyone can afford to travel to Switzerland for assisted suicide. Enter the Exiteers, good men and women whose job is to sit next to a terminal patient and witness the end of their life. Exiteers can't actively help the patients but they can provide the silver cylinder and plastic mask needed for the final act.

This is the background of the warm and witty Exit by Belinda Bauer (Bantam Press, January 2021), a brilliantly plotted and totally unique crime novel.

Seventy-five-year-old Felix Pink is an Exiteer, a good man working under a pseudonym with an honest desire to help others whose lives are no longer bearable. After all, if he didn't do it, who would? With his experience, Felix serves as a mentor for young Amanda, who joins him to witness a dying man's final breath. "I don't think I can do this," Amanda says. "You'll be fine," Felix assures her. What could possibly go wrong?

But something goes horribly wrong, and soon Felix is on run from the police and suspected of murder.

Exit is a whodunit/whydunit mystery but its strength is in its characters—real people with real lives and emotions. Felix is weighted down by events in his past. Calvin Bridge, the policeman on his trail, wonders why he ever agreed to take on the "worst job ever."  Skipper, the elderly man who planned to commit suicide with the Exiteers' assistance, comes to realize that his grandson is after a bit more than what is promised to him in the will. What make the characters even more human is the fact that many of them have pets to care for.

Exit is not exactly what you expected in a crime novel but exactly what you need for an enjoyable read.

Belinda Bauer grew up in England and South Africa. She has worked as a journalist and screenwriter, and her script The Locker Room earned her the Carl Foreman/Bafta Award for Young British Screenwriters. Her debut novel, Blacklands, Belinda was awarded the British Crime Writers' Association's Gold Dagger for best crime novel of 2010. Her novel Snap (2018) was longlisted for that year's Man Booker Prize.

The Trials and Tribulations of an Amateur Book Reviewer

"This is a novel I'm pretty sure you'd enjoy," my friend Ranen wrote to me. "It's very well plotted, and has gentle humor, and great characterizations."

The book did appeal to me. Exit by Belinda Bauer (Atlantic Monthly Press, February 2, 2021) tells the story of "Felix Pink, an older man with a group that helps people who have chosen to die with dignity. But there’s been a mistake, and Felix’s life is about to change forever."

That brief statement appears at the top of Exit's Amazon page, but the book is only available (so far) in hardcover, at least on the US site where I normally download Kindle editions.

I decided to request a review copy.

I enjoy reading, but I also enjoy writing reviews of the books I enjoy reading. Mostly, I review novels with a connection to Israel or Bulgaria, especially books being published in English for the first time. I am an amateur book reviewer. My reviews appear on my blog at the Times of Israel and on my personal blog.

Over the years I have established a connection with several small publishers, and they send me announcements of books about to appear in print. But I get most of the books I read to review by proactively requesting them, usually by emails written to publicists and marketing departments. I saw that Exit was available on NetGalley so I put in a request to review it.

"If you are simply an avid reader, we are happy to allow you access to a title, but in return we ask two things," responded the publisher of Grove Atlantic. "First, that if you have a chance to read the book, you take the time to write a review." The second thing was signing up for the publisher's newsletter. My request for a review copy was approved.

I downloaded a protected PDF from NetGalley and sent it to my tablet.

The other night I opened my tablet, eager to start reading, only to discover that the formatting of the PDF was horrendous. I didn't mind that it was an uncorrected proof, but how can

you

read a 

book if the lines

break like this. And then

paragraphs have no spaces between them.

 

The next morning, I logged into NetGalley directly from my tablet (a time-consuming process because I didn't remember my NetGalley password).

NetGalley has its own reading app, I discovered, and that is the preferred method for reading their review copies. I went to Google Play to download the app to my tablet (a time-consuming process because I didn't remember that password). Eventually the download started and then the screen said "installed successfully". I looked through the apps on my tablet, but I couldn't find the NetGalley Reading Shelf app anywhere!

Maybe I should try downloading the app on my phone, I thought. I returned once again to the NetGalley site (by now I had written down the password). I followed the trail to Google Play and downloaded the NetGalley app, installed it, logged in, and opened Exit.

The formatting was just fine.

So, now I am reading Exit on my phone.

Jodie asked me, "How can you read a book on your phone?"

 The next day, while waiting for my appointment at the dentist, I opened my phone and continued reading Exit.

So far, I am thoroughly enjoying it!